1
00:00:00,200 --> 00:00:04,000
Speaker 1: You are listening to Carrie Lutz's Financial Survival Network, where

2
00:00:04,040 --> 00:00:07,440
you get valuable information you just can't find anywhere else

3
00:00:08,000 --> 00:00:11,599
to thrive in today's trying times. You need the Financial

4
00:00:11,679 --> 00:00:16,760
Survival Network now more than ever. Go to Financial Survivalnetwork

5
00:00:16,800 --> 00:00:20,519
dot com and get your free newsletter and gift. Financial

6
00:00:20,679 --> 00:00:24,120
Survival Network now more than ever.

7
00:00:27,559 --> 00:00:31,039
Speaker 2: And welcome you are listening to and watching the Financial

8
00:00:31,079 --> 00:00:35,200
Survival Network. I'm your host, Carrie Lutz. Well, every now

9
00:00:35,240 --> 00:00:39,000
and then somebody comes along. You really have to admire

10
00:00:39,039 --> 00:00:43,840
this person meeting all these challenges, financial challenges, health challenges,

11
00:00:43,920 --> 00:00:47,719
coming out on top. Mark Adams, you are exactly that

12
00:00:47,840 --> 00:00:51,520
kind of person. And you're the best selling author of

13
00:00:51,600 --> 00:00:54,840
the book Secrets to TENX in your business and cashing

14
00:00:54,920 --> 00:00:58,119
out tax free, and you kind of have a storied

15
00:00:58,200 --> 00:01:01,240
career here. It's great to have you on the show.

16
00:01:01,359 --> 00:01:05,959
So tell us everything you've gone through. What have you learned,

17
00:01:06,280 --> 00:01:09,719
what did the three take my guys three takeaway your

18
00:01:09,760 --> 00:01:15,120
life experience beating stage four cancer and turning these companies around.

19
00:01:15,519 --> 00:01:17,799
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, before I get to that, thank you so

20
00:01:17,879 --> 00:01:19,400
much for having me on the show. It's the privilege

21
00:01:19,400 --> 00:01:22,920
to be here and listening to some of the episodes

22
00:01:22,920 --> 00:01:26,480
that you've done, not all of them over fourteen years.

23
00:01:26,519 --> 00:01:28,359
That's a lot of episodes. But listening to some of

24
00:01:28,359 --> 00:01:32,359
your episodes, it's I've got a lot to live up to,

25
00:01:32,599 --> 00:01:35,040
and I hope to do that. But to answer your question,

26
00:01:35,200 --> 00:01:37,760
I guess, you know, it's a really it's a question

27
00:01:37,840 --> 00:01:39,159
I get asked a lot, and I never know how

28
00:01:39,200 --> 00:01:42,400
to answer it because I think that the biggest takeaway,

29
00:01:42,680 --> 00:01:46,840
I guess is never give up. And when I draw that,

30
00:01:46,879 --> 00:01:52,560
particularly from cancer. So in my case, when you get

31
00:01:52,560 --> 00:01:54,719
diagnosed with stage four, I'm not the first person in

32
00:01:54,719 --> 00:01:56,959
the world to be toldly got stage four. I'm not

33
00:01:56,959 --> 00:01:59,599
the urf first person in the world to be told

34
00:01:59,640 --> 00:02:02,120
that six months to go. But when I got it,

35
00:02:02,120 --> 00:02:04,120
it was in the middle of COVID and we were

36
00:02:04,120 --> 00:02:07,120
in We were in twenty twenty, and at the beginning

37
00:02:07,159 --> 00:02:09,360
of twenty twenty, COVID was a thing that was coming,

38
00:02:09,520 --> 00:02:11,560
but none of us were in lockdown that obviously there

39
00:02:11,599 --> 00:02:13,479
were no vaccines or anything like that. By the end

40
00:02:13,479 --> 00:02:17,439
of twenty twenty, we'd been through worldwide lockdown number one

41
00:02:17,680 --> 00:02:20,199
and people were just beginning to come out in little groups.

42
00:02:20,240 --> 00:02:23,400
And that's when I got diagnosed with stage four six months.

43
00:02:23,719 --> 00:02:26,360
But then when they took it out, it was on

44
00:02:26,400 --> 00:02:30,319
the basis to see whether taking it out would give

45
00:02:30,319 --> 00:02:32,759
me a year maybe. And when you're in that scenario,

46
00:02:33,560 --> 00:02:35,960
you'll give anything for it. You'll give everything for another

47
00:02:36,039 --> 00:02:38,520
day with your family, with your loved ones, with your kids,

48
00:02:38,560 --> 00:02:40,000
whatever it is that you want to do, you'll give

49
00:02:40,000 --> 00:02:42,240
anything for that for one more day. So when I

50
00:02:42,280 --> 00:02:44,800
got the original strain of COVID while recovering from the

51
00:02:44,840 --> 00:02:50,120
cancer op in the hospital, pre vaccine, and you go

52
00:02:50,240 --> 00:02:53,080
from six months to at that time, if you remember,

53
00:02:53,759 --> 00:02:56,439
we were going through a twenty eighth day cycle. None

54
00:02:56,479 --> 00:02:58,759
of us knew what was coming that we knew in

55
00:02:58,800 --> 00:03:00,560
the first twelve days you would to go up to

56
00:03:00,560 --> 00:03:02,319
a day five, six or seven, and it was going

57
00:03:02,360 --> 00:03:05,199
to get worse or hopefully you were going to get better.

58
00:03:05,439 --> 00:03:08,319
So my thirty days have been robbed from me, and

59
00:03:08,319 --> 00:03:12,159
then I'm just looking at twelve. Now roll forward and

60
00:03:12,199 --> 00:03:16,520
we're in twenty twenty five. I've come through that, and

61
00:03:16,560 --> 00:03:21,520
the thing I learned was whatever my strategic goals a

62
00:03:21,639 --> 00:03:23,759
year or a couple of years were, it came down

63
00:03:23,840 --> 00:03:27,120
to minutes. Because when I was going through that COVID journey.

64
00:03:27,879 --> 00:03:29,919
I was getting on YouTube every morning figuring out what

65
00:03:29,919 --> 00:03:31,919
do you do on day one of COVID, day three

66
00:03:31,960 --> 00:03:34,479
of COVID, day five of COVID, what's happening to other

67
00:03:34,520 --> 00:03:37,400
people who's posting? What can I learn from that will

68
00:03:37,400 --> 00:03:40,080
help me get through this day? And then this morning

69
00:03:40,240 --> 00:03:43,280
of the day or the afternoon of the day. So

70
00:03:43,919 --> 00:03:46,719
huge learning on that was doesn't matter what you plan,

71
00:03:48,120 --> 00:03:50,240
life can sometimes grab you by the scruff of the

72
00:03:50,280 --> 00:03:52,159
neck and give you a different plan that you just

73
00:03:52,280 --> 00:03:57,000
weren't expecting. And then the other the second thing on

74
00:03:57,039 --> 00:04:00,520
that was, and we didn't really talk about this pretty show,

75
00:04:00,560 --> 00:04:03,599
it wasn't but listening to your background and the success

76
00:04:03,680 --> 00:04:06,039
you've had previously is selling a couple of your own businesses.

77
00:04:06,400 --> 00:04:08,319
In my case at that time, I reckoned mind was

78
00:04:08,360 --> 00:04:11,199
worth about ten mil. You try selling a business when

79
00:04:11,240 --> 00:04:12,919
you are the face of the business and you've got

80
00:04:13,159 --> 00:04:15,800
maybe twelve days, maybe thirty days, maybe six months to live,

81
00:04:16,040 --> 00:04:19,000
and you've got no chance. And I should know better

82
00:04:19,000 --> 00:04:22,439
because I come from a corporate and then private equity background,

83
00:04:22,439 --> 00:04:24,120
and you think your bulletproof and all of a sudden

84
00:04:24,120 --> 00:04:25,800
you face with that and you think, have I done enough.

85
00:04:26,360 --> 00:04:31,079
And the plain fact was I probably had six, seven,

86
00:04:31,079 --> 00:04:33,519
eight years to look you know, of cash to an assets,

87
00:04:33,519 --> 00:04:35,319
to look after my family, but I hadn't done enough.

88
00:04:35,959 --> 00:04:38,160
And that bulletproof thing that you thought that you had,

89
00:04:38,319 --> 00:04:40,759
you know, is disappearing out on the window because you've

90
00:04:40,759 --> 00:04:42,680
got six months to go. And then when you get COVID,

91
00:04:42,720 --> 00:04:46,160
you don't know what you got and there's no amount

92
00:04:46,199 --> 00:04:48,800
of planning that term or you know, you can look

93
00:04:48,839 --> 00:04:52,000
people black and blue in the face and say prepare, prepare, prepare,

94
00:04:52,040 --> 00:04:54,600
but you know you can still find yourself in a

95
00:04:54,680 --> 00:04:55,560
very difficult position.

96
00:04:55,680 --> 00:04:57,199
Speaker 4: So big lesson learn from that.

97
00:04:57,240 --> 00:04:59,160
Speaker 3: And the third one was really from my ten year

98
00:04:59,160 --> 00:05:02,560
old who taught me that there was a better way

99
00:05:02,720 --> 00:05:06,000
and so and there's context for this, but at the

100
00:05:06,000 --> 00:05:09,079
time I'm going through the COVID piece and I didn't

101
00:05:09,079 --> 00:05:11,079
know whether I was going to make twelve days, let

102
00:05:11,079 --> 00:05:14,439
alone twenty eight days. I'm trying to give as much

103
00:05:14,480 --> 00:05:16,680
information from the last three and a half years or

104
00:05:16,720 --> 00:05:18,839
three and a half decades of on entrepreneurship to a

105
00:05:18,839 --> 00:05:20,759
ten year old as I can in the hope that

106
00:05:20,800 --> 00:05:22,879
he's going to remember and do something with it. And

107
00:05:22,879 --> 00:05:24,480
one of the things I said to him, carry was

108
00:05:25,639 --> 00:05:29,560
the sad reality of eight or nine out of businesses

109
00:05:29,560 --> 00:05:31,560
that go to market to get sold in the let's

110
00:05:31,600 --> 00:05:34,240
say sub one hundred million revenue range never get the

111
00:05:34,240 --> 00:05:36,319
sticker price they want. Now, a lot of people will

112
00:05:36,360 --> 00:05:39,319
tell you they never sell, and that can be true,

113
00:05:39,519 --> 00:05:41,879
but they don't get the sticker price they want. And

114
00:05:41,959 --> 00:05:44,360
so my son says to me, so, what happens to

115
00:05:44,360 --> 00:05:46,519
the one? I said, well, you know, somebody buys that,

116
00:05:46,600 --> 00:05:48,680
and we compete for the ones that we would like

117
00:05:48,720 --> 00:05:50,759
along with everyone else. He said, what happens to the nine?

118
00:05:51,160 --> 00:05:54,360
And I said, well, they just either that. They're a

119
00:05:54,360 --> 00:05:57,480
bit like a property and not realizing he didn't know

120
00:05:57,519 --> 00:05:59,879
what that meant, but from a property analogy for the listeners,

121
00:06:00,120 --> 00:06:01,720
if you've got to put a property on the market,

122
00:06:01,800 --> 00:06:04,079
and it's correctly priced, it's going to be three months

123
00:06:04,079 --> 00:06:07,040
in contract to go under offer, and then in contract

124
00:06:07,079 --> 00:06:09,199
and it's done. If it's too cheap, it's sold the

125
00:06:09,199 --> 00:06:11,959
following day, and if it's overpriced a year later, it's

126
00:06:12,000 --> 00:06:12,639
still on the market.

127
00:06:13,120 --> 00:06:13,360
Speaker 4: Now.

128
00:06:14,240 --> 00:06:16,480
Speaker 3: Yeah, so if it's languishing, you've got some choices. You

129
00:06:16,519 --> 00:06:17,920
can either reduce the price.

130
00:06:17,680 --> 00:06:19,800
Speaker 4: Of it so that you can.

131
00:06:19,759 --> 00:06:22,040
Speaker 3: Get it sold because the market is telling you it's

132
00:06:22,040 --> 00:06:23,600
not willing to pay the price that you would like

133
00:06:23,720 --> 00:06:25,759
or that you want or that you need. Or you

134
00:06:25,800 --> 00:06:29,240
can improve the property, maybe you do a small extension,

135
00:06:29,319 --> 00:06:32,040
or you redecorate it, or you do something to improve

136
00:06:32,079 --> 00:06:34,639
the property so it gets the sticker price or closer

137
00:06:34,680 --> 00:06:37,399
to the sticker price that you want. You can do that,

138
00:06:37,720 --> 00:06:39,439
or you can just hang out and hope that somebody

139
00:06:39,480 --> 00:06:41,519
is going to come along eventually and pay the price,

140
00:06:41,560 --> 00:06:44,600
which sometimes happens. Or you can take it off the market,

141
00:06:44,839 --> 00:06:46,879
and a lot of businesses take it off the market,

142
00:06:46,920 --> 00:06:49,639
which is why you see so many people in their

143
00:06:49,639 --> 00:06:52,160
older years seventeen to eighty still working in the business,

144
00:06:52,480 --> 00:06:54,360
not just because they like it, but because they've got

145
00:06:54,360 --> 00:06:55,920
bills to pay and they can't get the sticker price

146
00:06:55,959 --> 00:06:58,560
they want. And then when you take into account that

147
00:06:58,680 --> 00:07:03,360
in some places New York, you'd lose maybe fifty percent

148
00:07:03,399 --> 00:07:06,079
of the asking price in taxis and fees and distributions

149
00:07:06,079 --> 00:07:09,079
and commissions from everybody that's got their fingers in the pie,

150
00:07:09,519 --> 00:07:11,319
then you can see why they don't end up with

151
00:07:11,439 --> 00:07:13,319
enough money to do what it is that they'd like

152
00:07:13,360 --> 00:07:14,959
to do. At the next stage of their life, and

153
00:07:15,000 --> 00:07:17,079
those are the retirement people, but of course there's people

154
00:07:17,120 --> 00:07:20,120
in their twenties, thirties, forties, and fifties that also go

155
00:07:20,279 --> 00:07:23,480
through this as well. So the kind of lesson that

156
00:07:23,759 --> 00:07:26,079
when I'm explaining that to him, and I wasn't going

157
00:07:26,120 --> 00:07:28,639
through that detail that we've just been through, but basically.

158
00:07:28,319 --> 00:07:30,600
Speaker 4: So there's where you go. I gotcha.

159
00:07:30,800 --> 00:07:34,240
Speaker 3: Yeah, he said to me, you need to work with

160
00:07:34,240 --> 00:07:37,040
a nine out of ten. And I said, okay, but

161
00:07:37,480 --> 00:07:40,319
you know what's your thinking? He said, he said, Dad,

162
00:07:40,800 --> 00:07:44,720
what happens if their parents get COVID and they die.

163
00:07:45,360 --> 00:07:47,600
Who's going to look after their families? If they didn't

164
00:07:47,600 --> 00:07:49,920
sell their businesses? And you can help them, and you

165
00:07:49,959 --> 00:07:52,160
need to help them. And at the point, at that point,

166
00:07:52,199 --> 00:07:55,560
of course, I'm recovering from COVID, so I'm kind of

167
00:07:55,600 --> 00:07:59,399
going okay, not having any idea on how you might

168
00:07:59,480 --> 00:08:02,839
tackle that out, because I think fairly I was focused

169
00:08:02,879 --> 00:08:05,079
on something else, like getting through COVID and then getting

170
00:08:05,079 --> 00:08:08,079
through cancer. But that took me a little while to

171
00:08:08,079 --> 00:08:10,360
figure out. The answer was hiding in plain sight. But

172
00:08:10,399 --> 00:08:12,839
two years later, or actually as longer than that, this

173
00:08:12,959 --> 00:08:15,040
is twenty twenty one, and the book came out of

174
00:08:15,079 --> 00:08:17,839
last year, so twenty four, so three years it took

175
00:08:17,839 --> 00:08:19,680
me to write a book. It takes a bit of

176
00:08:19,680 --> 00:08:21,360
time to write a book and then get it out

177
00:08:22,360 --> 00:08:24,560
so that people could you pick up a copy and

178
00:08:24,639 --> 00:08:27,480
do some of the basic things to help themselves. So

179
00:08:27,879 --> 00:08:31,040
the third lesson on that was wasn't really the best

180
00:08:31,120 --> 00:08:33,399
human being if from a private equity point of view,

181
00:08:33,399 --> 00:08:35,799
you're buying as low as you can to build value

182
00:08:35,799 --> 00:08:37,960
into the business to sell as high as you can later.

183
00:08:38,559 --> 00:08:41,000
And actually a much better way is to partner with

184
00:08:41,080 --> 00:08:43,519
the people that own the businesses to help them on

185
00:08:43,600 --> 00:08:46,639
the journey still running a business and making great money,

186
00:08:46,679 --> 00:08:49,360
but not as much as private equity would make, so

187
00:08:49,399 --> 00:08:52,320
that they can get, you know, significantly more on their

188
00:08:52,360 --> 00:08:54,480
exit than they might have gotten if you weren't touching

189
00:08:54,519 --> 00:08:57,399
base with them. And a lot of business owners when

190
00:08:57,399 --> 00:08:59,080
they get to the point of selling a business don't

191
00:08:59,080 --> 00:09:01,480
even consider the tax and the fees and distributions they're

192
00:09:01,480 --> 00:09:03,799
going to be encountering, and by that time it's often

193
00:09:03,840 --> 00:09:08,799
too late. So you know, key, key things, and so

194
00:09:09,679 --> 00:09:12,320
now I get a lot more enjoyment and I sleep

195
00:09:12,320 --> 00:09:15,960
a lot better at night. Helping people sort of navigate

196
00:09:16,000 --> 00:09:21,159
this but it also affects younger people too. So the

197
00:09:21,240 --> 00:09:24,559
book is Secrets to ten exiting the value of the business,

198
00:09:24,559 --> 00:09:26,120
because there's a bunch of things that you can do

199
00:09:26,159 --> 00:09:29,360
that you just wouldn't even think about, and then exiting it.

200
00:09:29,399 --> 00:09:32,080
If you can tax free. You can't always exit tax free.

201
00:09:32,120 --> 00:09:35,519
It depends on your circumstance, it depends on where you are,

202
00:09:36,799 --> 00:09:40,919
but you can certainly tax minimize in most instances for sure.

203
00:09:41,240 --> 00:09:44,519
And this makes such a massive difference to somebody selling

204
00:09:44,559 --> 00:09:47,919
a business and I just you know, and I think

205
00:09:47,960 --> 00:09:51,000
that's I think that's goald, But it doesn't matter what

206
00:09:51,039 --> 00:09:53,360
I think. It matters that other people take advantage of

207
00:09:53,399 --> 00:09:54,360
it and do something with it.

208
00:09:54,879 --> 00:09:55,480
Speaker 4: What do you think?

209
00:09:55,519 --> 00:09:59,399
Speaker 2: What I think reality is what counts here. Obviously, I've

210
00:09:59,399 --> 00:10:04,559
saw that businesses myself. I had covid. Uh I went

211
00:10:04,600 --> 00:10:07,879
in it was was getting bad, and uh, you know

212
00:10:07,919 --> 00:10:10,919
what I subsequently found out is day three is make

213
00:10:11,000 --> 00:10:11,519
or break.

214
00:10:11,840 --> 00:10:13,799
Speaker 4: You start getting better. At day three.

215
00:10:13,720 --> 00:10:17,759
Speaker 2: You're going to survive, and if you don't, then you're

216
00:10:17,799 --> 00:10:20,480
probably it's going to be a lot harder and your

217
00:10:20,480 --> 00:10:24,559
odd's going to way way down. So so that is

218
00:10:24,600 --> 00:10:27,519
a wake up call because you're really confronted with your

219
00:10:27,600 --> 00:10:29,840
mortality and you got double confronted.

220
00:10:30,240 --> 00:10:33,000
Speaker 4: Maybe you getting COVID was a gift.

221
00:10:32,799 --> 00:10:35,200
Speaker 2: Because it kind of it sounds like it kind of

222
00:10:35,200 --> 00:10:39,960
turbocharged your immune system which then killed off the cancer.

223
00:10:40,080 --> 00:10:45,159
I've heard of other things where they you know, introduce

224
00:10:45,200 --> 00:10:48,639
an infection at benign infection and it kills off something

225
00:10:48,720 --> 00:10:49,639
more seriously.

226
00:10:50,120 --> 00:10:51,159
Speaker 4: So who knows.

227
00:10:51,240 --> 00:10:55,519
Speaker 2: But but the fact is you got young kids and

228
00:10:56,080 --> 00:10:58,799
you're thinking, uh, am I going to leave them at

229
00:10:58,799 --> 00:11:01,440
this point? And it's it's a really hard thing to

230
00:11:01,440 --> 00:11:03,600
come out. I'm thinking, am I ever are going to

231
00:11:03,639 --> 00:11:04,799
see my grandchildren?

232
00:11:06,399 --> 00:11:08,759
Speaker 4: You know? I ever seen my grandson and hit.

233
00:11:08,600 --> 00:11:11,600
Speaker 2: His first home run in the Little League, And it's

234
00:11:11,600 --> 00:11:15,120
a it's a real uh real hard thing to come

235
00:11:15,159 --> 00:11:16,320
to terms with for sure.

236
00:11:16,759 --> 00:11:19,559
Speaker 4: Hey, so so getting back to them.

237
00:11:19,480 --> 00:11:21,360
Speaker 3: And you may, you know, make a great point carry

238
00:11:21,360 --> 00:11:25,879
that I forgot to mention that you say that, you know,

239
00:11:26,200 --> 00:11:28,840
having COVID thrown you as a kerbul. In my case,

240
00:11:28,879 --> 00:11:31,799
they do think that having COVID cured the cancer. And

241
00:11:31,840 --> 00:11:35,440
they think that because around April twenty one there were

242
00:11:35,799 --> 00:11:39,240
a dozen also cases of people like me getting reported

243
00:11:39,279 --> 00:11:41,519
in medical Journey. I wasn't one of them, but people

244
00:11:42,039 --> 00:11:45,039
with late stage cancer and getting reported in medical journals

245
00:11:45,120 --> 00:11:47,840
around the world that didn't have much of a prognosis

246
00:11:47,840 --> 00:11:51,559
of survival and got COVID and all of a sudden

247
00:11:51,559 --> 00:11:53,559
they couldn't find the cancer anymore, which is exactly what

248
00:11:53,600 --> 00:11:54,039
happened to me.

249
00:11:54,120 --> 00:11:54,279
Speaker 4: Now.

250
00:11:54,320 --> 00:11:57,000
Speaker 3: The reason they think it is because I was all

251
00:11:57,039 --> 00:11:59,000
over it when they told me this, like, you know,

252
00:11:59,039 --> 00:12:00,919
can we bottle it because obviously we found the cure

253
00:12:00,919 --> 00:12:04,440
for cancer, We're going to be gazillionaires. No, no, no, Mark,

254
00:12:04,480 --> 00:12:07,879
that's not the case. What seemed to happen is that

255
00:12:07,960 --> 00:12:10,840
it drives your immune system into overdrive. To your point,

256
00:12:11,399 --> 00:12:13,919
and the immune system if you look after yourself, and

257
00:12:13,960 --> 00:12:15,720
a good reason to get healthy if you're not, and

258
00:12:15,799 --> 00:12:18,600
stay healthy if you are, is that your immune system

259
00:12:18,639 --> 00:12:21,200
is actually pretty damn good at dealing with an awful

260
00:12:21,240 --> 00:12:22,840
lot of stuff that we need to deal with as

261
00:12:22,919 --> 00:12:25,559
human beings. And in my case, they think that it

262
00:12:25,600 --> 00:12:29,600
forced the immune system into overdrive, and they think that

263
00:12:29,600 --> 00:12:31,879
that did a lot to clear out the residual cancels

264
00:12:32,120 --> 00:12:34,720
the cancers once the primary had gone. So when I

265
00:12:34,759 --> 00:12:36,759
went back from the eight week check, I hadn't had

266
00:12:36,759 --> 00:12:37,320
any chemo.

267
00:12:37,480 --> 00:12:38,000
Speaker 4: I'd have the.

268
00:12:37,960 --> 00:12:40,480
Speaker 3: Operation, and it was a you know, what could we

269
00:12:40,519 --> 00:12:43,320
do now? And they said the good news is we

270
00:12:43,360 --> 00:12:45,440
can't find any cancer. And the bad news is we've

271
00:12:45,480 --> 00:12:47,519
got no idea why. And I said that bad news

272
00:12:47,519 --> 00:12:50,559
and they went, well, no, I'm very very lady.

273
00:12:51,440 --> 00:12:51,639
Speaker 4: Yeah.

274
00:12:52,559 --> 00:12:55,440
Speaker 3: So I just I'm lucky, lucky to be here, very veryorky,

275
00:12:55,480 --> 00:12:57,679
to be here and enjoy those extra days that you

276
00:12:57,720 --> 00:13:00,000
talk about with your kids and your grandkids and stuff.

277
00:13:00,639 --> 00:13:02,960
Speaker 2: And then you realize when you've been confronted with it

278
00:13:03,000 --> 00:13:05,919
that every day is truly a gift, whether you're faced

279
00:13:06,000 --> 00:13:09,919
with death or you're just going through your daily routine

280
00:13:10,080 --> 00:13:13,879
and you're not happy, or you're upset over something, and

281
00:13:14,519 --> 00:13:20,120
really it changes your perspective. So succession though, getting out

282
00:13:20,159 --> 00:13:24,039
of a company, I've had so many guests on Mark

283
00:13:24,159 --> 00:13:27,399
talking about this, like you have to build your business

284
00:13:27,519 --> 00:13:30,200
with the intent of selling it and all of this.

285
00:13:30,799 --> 00:13:32,360
Speaker 4: But having been in.

286
00:13:32,320 --> 00:13:38,159
Speaker 2: This situation myself, it's I mean, it's easy to say

287
00:13:38,200 --> 00:13:41,360
you should do it, but to actually do it, I

288
00:13:41,440 --> 00:13:44,960
find it extremely difficult. I mean, I sold my company

289
00:13:45,039 --> 00:13:50,399
to my largest competitor and got close to top dollar

290
00:13:51,840 --> 00:13:54,320
in a situation with a family member that I didn't

291
00:13:54,360 --> 00:13:57,399
want to be in and that was the added impetus.

292
00:13:57,639 --> 00:14:02,240
Took me nine months to to accomplish this sale, but

293
00:14:02,320 --> 00:14:06,399
it was worth every second of it. And you know

294
00:14:06,960 --> 00:14:10,559
when I look at that, and I said, and my

295
00:14:10,639 --> 00:14:14,200
father started the company in nineteen sixty three with my uncle.

296
00:14:14,960 --> 00:14:17,600
There was no way they were thinking about being bought out.

297
00:14:17,639 --> 00:14:20,919
They were just looking to make some money and provide

298
00:14:20,960 --> 00:14:25,480
a service and they had no grasp of it. So

299
00:14:26,240 --> 00:14:28,639
at what point do you have to change your emphasis

300
00:14:29,200 --> 00:14:30,320
and look at these things?

301
00:14:31,399 --> 00:14:34,679
Speaker 4: Is there a certain million question, brilliant question?

302
00:14:35,080 --> 00:14:38,159
Speaker 3: And it really gets me excited because I agree with

303
00:14:38,600 --> 00:14:41,799
everything that you've just said, and most people are like that.

304
00:14:42,120 --> 00:14:46,799
Most people like that. So I've really in my mind,

305
00:14:47,039 --> 00:14:52,759
I've sort of categorized this in six different phases. So

306
00:14:52,799 --> 00:14:55,080
Phase one is you're just starting like your dad did,

307
00:14:55,360 --> 00:14:58,519
started the started the business in nineteen sixty three, and

308
00:14:58,559 --> 00:15:00,200
all they wanted to do was make some money, pay

309
00:15:00,240 --> 00:15:03,120
some bills. So phase one, I put that in my

310
00:15:03,320 --> 00:15:05,840
Phase one in my mind is zero to one hundred k,

311
00:15:06,200 --> 00:15:07,519
it's just get cash in the door.

312
00:15:08,200 --> 00:15:10,440
Speaker 4: Now. One hundred K to five hundred k.

313
00:15:11,039 --> 00:15:13,000
Speaker 3: Is now get cash in and a bit of cash

314
00:15:13,039 --> 00:15:17,240
flow that's stage two, and those two stages you're doing

315
00:15:17,320 --> 00:15:19,759
most of the things yourself in today's economy. As you

316
00:15:19,799 --> 00:15:21,720
come to the end of stage two, the closer to

317
00:15:21,720 --> 00:15:24,200
half a million, you get in top line, maybe you've

318
00:15:24,200 --> 00:15:26,679
got some vidos coming on to help you. And then

319
00:15:26,679 --> 00:15:30,039
stage three is half a million to two. Now you're

320
00:15:30,080 --> 00:15:33,600
beginning to do more cash flow and you're starting to

321
00:15:33,639 --> 00:15:35,480
budget a little bit of other things that you can

322
00:15:35,480 --> 00:15:38,120
do to grow the business. And those three stages are

323
00:15:38,120 --> 00:15:41,559
probably three years, and then stage four, when you get

324
00:15:41,559 --> 00:15:45,200
to two million, is grow it. So you're going from

325
00:15:45,240 --> 00:15:47,559
two to ten now. And by the time you get

326
00:15:47,600 --> 00:15:49,720
to ten, and that's the fourth and the fourth and

327
00:15:49,759 --> 00:15:55,200
the fifth year, you would be planning if you follow

328
00:15:55,639 --> 00:15:59,159
if you follow the guidelines that I would suggest, you

329
00:15:59,200 --> 00:16:01,559
would be planning to be doing fifteen percent minimum in

330
00:16:01,639 --> 00:16:05,840
ebit DAR. So you're turning over generateen ten in revenue,

331
00:16:05,840 --> 00:16:09,360
but you're making one and a half now at this point.

332
00:16:09,679 --> 00:16:11,519
What a lot of other people don't think about My

333
00:16:11,639 --> 00:16:14,240
dad didn't maybe your dad didn't, is at one and

334
00:16:14,279 --> 00:16:17,600
a half, you're probably worth nine to ten million.

335
00:16:17,320 --> 00:16:18,720
Speaker 4: Depending on the industry that you're in.

336
00:16:19,279 --> 00:16:21,360
Speaker 3: But at half a million in ebit dar you're not

337
00:16:21,399 --> 00:16:24,679
worth much more than half a million itself. So there's

338
00:16:24,679 --> 00:16:27,919
an exponential payoff for you if you think about a

339
00:16:27,919 --> 00:16:30,320
process and a system and a formula that you can follow,

340
00:16:31,000 --> 00:16:35,159
which I'm increasingly thinking of as seven years towards one

341
00:16:35,200 --> 00:16:38,519
hundred million in a repeatable way that you can exit

342
00:16:38,840 --> 00:16:40,279
and do it again, so you can do it in

343
00:16:40,320 --> 00:16:43,759
your twenties, thirties, forties, and fifties. So to come back

344
00:16:43,799 --> 00:16:47,440
into stage four, which is grow, Stage five is ten

345
00:16:47,519 --> 00:16:50,320
million to one hundred million. Now, the big difference on

346
00:16:50,360 --> 00:16:53,720
stage five is you start really shifting from organic to

347
00:16:53,799 --> 00:16:57,600
growth to organic and acquisitative. So in the US right now,

348
00:16:58,039 --> 00:17:02,840
the economy is growing four percent something like that organic growth.

349
00:17:02,879 --> 00:17:07,880
Speaker 4: You know, I can't believe what they say, but yeah, yeah.

350
00:17:07,880 --> 00:17:10,680
Speaker 3: But it isn't fifteen percent and it's not thirty percent,

351
00:17:10,720 --> 00:17:13,319
and you can you can probably believe that. And so

352
00:17:14,279 --> 00:17:16,079
in most cases there are some people that will buck

353
00:17:16,119 --> 00:17:18,319
the trend in high growth industries at AI for example,

354
00:17:18,359 --> 00:17:20,359
will buck that trend startups or bout that trend. But

355
00:17:20,400 --> 00:17:23,279
generally speaking, you two to four percent, so organic growth

356
00:17:23,279 --> 00:17:25,359
ain't going to get you there. So as you start

357
00:17:25,359 --> 00:17:28,039
coming up towards the ten million in growth and you

358
00:17:28,039 --> 00:17:30,440
know one million plus an ebit. One of the key

359
00:17:30,480 --> 00:17:32,759
strategies that people don't think about because they're really good

360
00:17:32,759 --> 00:17:34,960
at doing the thing it is that they do is

361
00:17:35,000 --> 00:17:38,920
to buy other companies by acquiring. So a friend of

362
00:17:38,960 --> 00:17:41,160
mine that I'm helping at the moment is in the

363
00:17:41,680 --> 00:17:44,160
video editing business, and he started a company five years

364
00:17:44,200 --> 00:17:47,759
ago and he's at for four hundred thousand in revenue.

365
00:17:47,799 --> 00:17:49,480
It's taking him a long time to get there, and

366
00:17:49,519 --> 00:17:52,599
he's taking that cash down and enjoying life a little bit.

367
00:17:52,759 --> 00:17:54,880
And I started to say to him, now, as you

368
00:17:55,000 --> 00:17:56,880
move forward this year and you're looking to get to

369
00:17:56,920 --> 00:17:59,920
five or six hundred, then you want us in terms

370
00:17:59,960 --> 00:18:03,400
of profitability ebit, Then you want to instead of buying bitcoin,

371
00:18:03,640 --> 00:18:06,680
start thinking about how you're going to buy another business

372
00:18:06,720 --> 00:18:09,039
like yours in a different location, because you'll double the

373
00:18:09,039 --> 00:18:10,359
size of the business.

374
00:18:09,960 --> 00:18:10,440
Speaker 4: In a day.

375
00:18:10,799 --> 00:18:13,319
Speaker 3: So if you get yourself up to ten million ish

376
00:18:13,359 --> 00:18:16,240
and you bought three more businesses of a similar size

377
00:18:16,240 --> 00:18:18,400
and shape, you're going to have some cash deleverage. You're

378
00:18:18,519 --> 00:18:22,279
very investable. You're at forty million or fifty million now,

379
00:18:22,559 --> 00:18:25,319
and that's year five and six. And year seven is

380
00:18:25,359 --> 00:18:28,839
about prepping for the exit. So if you're doing if

381
00:18:28,880 --> 00:18:31,359
you're doing ten to fifteen million in EBIT, which you

382
00:18:31,359 --> 00:18:33,880
should be easily by this point, if you've followed a

383
00:18:33,960 --> 00:18:37,240
plan and you've been able to execute on that, then

384
00:18:37,240 --> 00:18:39,039
you're going to be looking on it. Let's say on

385
00:18:39,079 --> 00:18:41,559
a ten million business, you're going to be looking maybe

386
00:18:41,720 --> 00:18:44,559
fifty sixty seventy is an exit sure and you cash

387
00:18:44,599 --> 00:18:47,920
out at that seven year interval. Now I'm not saying

388
00:18:48,000 --> 00:18:50,680
it takes seven years. I am saying that it might

389
00:18:50,720 --> 00:18:53,039
take eight years or nine years, or it might be

390
00:18:53,079 --> 00:18:55,880
possible to do it in five years. But the point

391
00:18:55,920 --> 00:18:58,599
is you're cashing out, and by preparing for that from

392
00:18:58,680 --> 00:19:02,160
year four, as you start to acquire other companies, you're

393
00:19:02,160 --> 00:19:05,079
building in place a leadership team that can retire you

394
00:19:05,119 --> 00:19:09,000
from the board, retire you from your job, and resign

395
00:19:09,039 --> 00:19:11,759
you from everything except being a shareholder in the business,

396
00:19:11,880 --> 00:19:13,880
so that when it does sell, you are not leaded

397
00:19:14,240 --> 00:19:17,200
needed for very long common problem for business owners exiting

398
00:19:17,200 --> 00:19:19,559
a businesses they are the business, which makes it hard

399
00:19:19,559 --> 00:19:21,160
to sell and they're tied in for a long time.

400
00:19:22,720 --> 00:19:26,039
And also with that repeatable model, even if you didn't

401
00:19:26,079 --> 00:19:28,400
make a hundred million and you had made fifty. And

402
00:19:28,599 --> 00:19:31,200
if you're doing this in your twenties, you're set. You've

403
00:19:31,240 --> 00:19:34,119
covered your mortgage, you've got your school fees, you've got

404
00:19:34,160 --> 00:19:36,000
money set aside. And then when you go again in

405
00:19:36,039 --> 00:19:38,400
your thirties, you're going to use some of the money

406
00:19:38,400 --> 00:19:41,079
that you've made not to buy in at ground zero

407
00:19:41,319 --> 00:19:43,480
and do zero to one hundred k one hundred k

408
00:19:43,559 --> 00:19:45,240
to five hundred k again. But you're going to come

409
00:19:45,240 --> 00:19:47,480
in at two million to ten million a buy company

410
00:19:47,839 --> 00:19:50,920
or companies at that size and go again. And now

411
00:19:50,960 --> 00:19:53,759
it's not seven years, it's five years before you've got

412
00:19:53,759 --> 00:19:56,480
those companies to appoint, where there's still plenty of mileage

413
00:19:56,480 --> 00:19:58,480
in there for other investors to take it forward to

414
00:19:58,519 --> 00:20:02,440
the next level. But your cash out consistently within incrementally

415
00:20:02,480 --> 00:20:05,799
more in your bank account, and your role is changing.

416
00:20:05,799 --> 00:20:08,079
You're teaching other people to do what you've done on

417
00:20:08,119 --> 00:20:09,680
the way through that they don't know how to do

418
00:20:10,000 --> 00:20:12,319
because they're behind you, not in front of you in

419
00:20:12,400 --> 00:20:14,920
terms of their life journey. So I talked to a

420
00:20:14,920 --> 00:20:18,279
lot of people about this as part of the secrets

421
00:20:18,319 --> 00:20:20,680
to tenanting your business and cashing out tax free because

422
00:20:20,720 --> 00:20:24,440
what I found in just looking at the part of

423
00:20:25,240 --> 00:20:28,000
the end game when you might be retiring, is there

424
00:20:28,000 --> 00:20:31,240
are so many questions I get asked from TikTok followers

425
00:20:31,279 --> 00:20:33,640
who are young people just starting out in business or

426
00:20:34,000 --> 00:20:37,079
YouTube or Insta or Facebook about well, how do you

427
00:20:37,079 --> 00:20:39,920
prepare the business to grow? And it's a repeat it

428
00:20:40,119 --> 00:20:42,680
can be done in a repeatable way, and not many people,

429
00:20:42,759 --> 00:20:44,680
like I've not come across anybody that talks about it

430
00:20:44,720 --> 00:20:47,519
that way. It doesn't mean that there aren't other people,

431
00:20:47,640 --> 00:20:50,359
but there's so many other ways of describing this that

432
00:20:50,400 --> 00:20:52,839
deal with a slither of the problem that deal with

433
00:20:52,880 --> 00:20:55,640
the exit, or deal with the preparation for the exit,

434
00:20:55,720 --> 00:20:58,240
or deal with growth through sales or digital marketing, or

435
00:20:58,359 --> 00:21:01,000
might deal with acquisitions. Bring it all together as a

436
00:21:01,079 --> 00:21:04,319
vertical skill stack and as a journey that you can follow.

437
00:21:05,279 --> 00:21:07,799
Then you can do You can do one stroke too,

438
00:21:07,880 --> 00:21:10,240
but I say do one a decade and take three

439
00:21:10,359 --> 00:21:13,680
years off, sure, then and then go again. And that

440
00:21:13,920 --> 00:21:16,480
I think for me is the huge difference that Secrets

441
00:21:16,519 --> 00:21:19,480
to tenexting your business and cashing out tax free has

442
00:21:19,599 --> 00:21:22,680
leveraged and led to that helps a lot of other

443
00:21:22,720 --> 00:21:24,640
people that are coming up to the point where they

444
00:21:24,880 --> 00:21:28,559
may be considering selling a business because they want to retire.

445
00:21:29,279 --> 00:21:31,319
But there's so many but you could do this. You

446
00:21:31,319 --> 00:21:33,160
could do this every ten years, you know, and so

447
00:21:33,240 --> 00:21:34,400
I call it a seven year sign.

448
00:21:35,000 --> 00:21:36,079
Speaker 4: Yeah, am I making sense?

449
00:21:36,119 --> 00:21:39,119
Speaker 3: Does this make I mean, you've successfully sold two businesses,

450
00:21:39,440 --> 00:21:41,440
and I know listening to your backstory that you know

451
00:21:41,519 --> 00:21:43,160
part of the reason for yourself is you just fed

452
00:21:43,240 --> 00:21:44,480
up with it and you wanted to a chain you

453
00:21:44,559 --> 00:21:48,240
wanted to change. So it's not accounting for that scenario.

454
00:21:48,359 --> 00:21:54,880
But if you've followed a similar blueprint in its ideology

455
00:21:54,880 --> 00:21:58,400
that I'm laying out, then one would expect that you'd, well,

456
00:21:58,480 --> 00:22:01,400
you cashed out in nine months, which is good because

457
00:22:01,640 --> 00:22:03,599
you know they can go on for longer. But as

458
00:22:03,640 --> 00:22:05,559
somebody that's been down this path, does it make sense?

459
00:22:06,039 --> 00:22:06,720
Speaker 4: Oh? Totally?

460
00:22:07,160 --> 00:22:10,039
Speaker 2: And in my case selling out to my I tried

461
00:22:10,079 --> 00:22:13,480
to buy my biggest competitor first, but they're owned by

462
00:22:13,519 --> 00:22:16,079
a corporate entity and they just didn't want to sell

463
00:22:16,119 --> 00:22:20,240
them to us, and then and then they they sold

464
00:22:20,279 --> 00:22:22,279
them to somebody else and that was the person I

465
00:22:22,319 --> 00:22:25,519
eventually sold to. But my thought was exactly what you

466
00:22:25,559 --> 00:22:28,960
were saying, because after he brought us he was, you know,

467
00:22:29,039 --> 00:22:33,240
like a fifteen million dollar company, and then he was

468
00:22:33,279 --> 00:22:36,240
able to sell it for way more than what he

469
00:22:36,279 --> 00:22:39,640
paid for us and what he paid for that company

470
00:22:39,720 --> 00:22:43,640
combined and the Yeah, last I heard he was retired

471
00:22:43,680 --> 00:22:47,559
in Naples, Florida. So good for him. But you know,

472
00:22:47,880 --> 00:22:53,119
I've seen it exactly. The formulae you're talking about definitely works. Hey,

473
00:22:53,359 --> 00:22:55,359
So we want to find out more about you, Mark.

474
00:22:55,400 --> 00:22:57,400
I want to connect with you on the web. Where

475
00:22:57,400 --> 00:22:59,240
do we find you? How do we get the book?

476
00:22:59,519 --> 00:22:59,759
Speaker 4: Yeah?

477
00:22:59,839 --> 00:23:03,880
Speaker 3: So with your permission, I'll send you my I can

478
00:23:03,960 --> 00:23:05,480
send you a link tree which has got all my

479
00:23:05,480 --> 00:23:07,000
stuff in it, so people could reach out to me

480
00:23:07,039 --> 00:23:09,240
they're entted to they can go to the website, they

481
00:23:09,240 --> 00:23:13,720
can hit me up an email. But also there's the

482
00:23:13,759 --> 00:23:16,000
book is available to Amazon, but for anybody that's a

483
00:23:16,039 --> 00:23:18,680
listener to your show that might get some benefit from it,

484
00:23:18,720 --> 00:23:19,200
they can get a.

485
00:23:19,200 --> 00:23:21,519
Speaker 4: PDF version of it for free. O great.

486
00:23:21,559 --> 00:23:23,920
Speaker 3: And so if I send you a link tree, they

487
00:23:24,000 --> 00:23:26,279
can go. You know, they need to be careful because

488
00:23:26,319 --> 00:23:27,519
there's two ways to get it. You can get the

489
00:23:27,519 --> 00:23:30,279
free version, or if you click the wrong link, it

490
00:23:30,319 --> 00:23:32,160
will take you to Amazon and you can buy.

491
00:23:31,920 --> 00:23:32,720
Speaker 4: The book.

492
00:23:34,039 --> 00:23:35,880
Speaker 3: You know, that's all the ways in which people can

493
00:23:35,920 --> 00:23:39,200
reach out and you know, WhatsApp, email, they can hit

494
00:23:39,240 --> 00:23:41,240
the website, they can go to my personal branded site

495
00:23:41,240 --> 00:23:43,160
and get the book. And I'm happy to make that

496
00:23:43,200 --> 00:23:44,880
available to any of your listeners.

497
00:23:44,960 --> 00:23:46,680
Speaker 4: If that helps, all right, perfect well.

498
00:23:46,720 --> 00:23:48,079
Speaker 2: The link will be in the show notes to this

499
00:23:48,160 --> 00:23:51,759
interview on Financial Survival Network dot com. If you've got

500
00:23:51,759 --> 00:23:54,839
a question from Mark myself, shoot me an email kl

501
00:23:54,920 --> 00:23:57,839
at Kerrie Lets dot com and all we ask is

502
00:23:57,839 --> 00:23:59,519
when you're at the site, please sign up for your

503
00:23:59,519 --> 00:24:03,720
free newsletter, and over seventy five thousand of you have

504
00:24:03,759 --> 00:24:07,000
done that already. Mark, been an absolute pleasure. Wish you

505
00:24:07,079 --> 00:24:10,000
the best of luck, good health and talk to you again, so.

506
00:24:10,200 --> 00:24:11,640
Speaker 3: And Sid to you, my friend, and thank you so

507
00:24:11,720 --> 00:24:13,000
much for having me on the show. It's been an

508
00:24:13,000 --> 00:24:14,079
absolute privilege for me.

509
00:24:14,279 --> 00:24:18,440
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to carry Lets's Financial Survival Network, your

510
00:24:18,519 --> 00:24:22,359
solution to today's trying times. For the latest, go to

511
00:24:22,519 --> 00:24:26,920
Financialsurvivalnetwork dot com. Financial Survival Network

512
00:24:27,240 --> 00:24:28,920
Speaker 3: Now more than ever,

